Azure79

I just finished the first Overlord and despite one really annoying lawn mowing minigame which absolutely sucked, it was an awesome game. The funniest moment for me was after defeating the dwarves, some of my minions ran around with dwarven beards on their little faces. I guess they had uh, shaved them off the fallen dwarves. Ah, they were so enthusiastic about destroying stuff.

Didn't early Resident Evil games do something like this too? You could play through the game from the perspective of two characters and depending on which character you played first, parts of the game would change for the second character. I think it was RE2, which I tried to play, but I couldn't get past the controls. I think it would be interesting to see in a RPG, where perhaps you control one protagonist throughout a portion of the story and then at a certain point they form a party and you would essentially role play that party, determining who speaks and interacts with whom or what. I thought that was pretty fun in Storm of Zehir where you could choose who spoke.

I was just wondering how this game was? Are you playing it for the PC or PS3? I was thinking of picking it up for the PS3, but had heard about a lot of framerate issues. Recently, I just started a game of Red Faction: Guerilla and may start some Burnout Paradise. I'm playing on the PS3 and haven't noticed any framerate issues. The game runs pretty smoothly from what I can tell and I currently have 35 minions running around. The gameplay itself is pretty fun. I haven't played anything comparable but I've heard its like Pikmin if you ever played that. Basically you're the new Overlord of Evil and you have 4 types of minions, each with their special abilities. You control the minions to take your revenge on some heroes that killed the previous Overlord but you can pretty much play as a good guy too. Most of the game centers on first getting the different minions and then using them to work your way through various levels, opening doors, solving puzzles, killing things, etc. I personally like the puzzles presented to me so far. My favorite has to be a makeshift game of break'em with your minions controlling a cart of food and having an obese hobbit bounce off it. There is some humor thrown in as the devs make fun of the basic fantasy staples such as the hungry halfing, greedy dwarf, emo elves etc. All in all, a pretty solid game.

Playing some Overlord: Raising Hell. Its a pretty fun game. I like sweeping my little minions about creating havoc. I tend to not be able to play evil characters in games, but something about this game makes me want to kill everythng in sight. I think its the voice acting and constant nagging of the villagefolk.

Sure thing. No doubt I'll come up with a list of little complaints on the game despite enjoying it immensely.

I don't mean to knock Bioware's stories. I always pretty much enjoy them, from KotOR to Jade Empire to Mass Effect. The only game I was really dissapointed in, storywise is NWN OC, which if I remember correctly also had some extinct evil race trying to make a comeback. All I'm saying is that Dragon Age seems to be heading down that reawakening evil story path, which is fine, but I'm hoping there is a strong personal story in there as well.

Many well regarded fantasy novels have 'the evil reawakening' plot and I don't mind that at all as long as the personal story of the hero(s) is well written. I did find The Song of Ice and Fire novels really interesting because the evil reawakening plot was shown through bits and pieces, here and there, but mostly took a backseat to the political intrigue, betrayals, murders and battles. It also had great characters, with some I totally loathed earlier, but later I was silently rooting for. I really want something personal driving my PC forward and not just, 'oh, you're our most promising Grey Warden with this origin story, go out and save the world now from the reawakened evil.' One of the reasons I still love BG2 over all other Bio games is because the story is more personal. Its less about saving the world and more about getting something that was stolen from you back. I'm sure Bioware will deliver a great game, but I'm always hoping for more.

Fixed. I was gonna mention that parallel but seemed too obvious.

The voiceovers seem stilted, inflections seem off and there is pausing at awkward places. I was hoping for a more interesting story than 'every so many years the demon reawakens and gathers his army and tries to destroy the world.' I hope the story is more interesting on a personal level for your PC.

Playing some Assassin's Creed. Got it when it was cheap from Steam. Same impressions as most people. Great atmosphere and parkour gameplay. Too much repetition and same old thing again and again. Also whats the point of gathering all that assassination info if the assassination sequence only starts when you are standing in one exact spot that the game wants you to. Why can't you sneak in somewhere where you can get the jump on someone? I did enjoy the combat as it offered enough options to keep things interesting. Story was ok, but I guess anyone could see where the game was going, so nothing special. Overall a good game, but I hope Assassin's Creed 2 makes a lot of improvements.

So I've been reading up on some Mass Effect 2 news and apparently as a direct consequence of the decisions you've made throughout the game. Just wanted some thoughts on how games, in particular RPGs should handle this situation. Do you think its fair for the developers to take control of your character's fate? Especially if you've spent hours with that character and have grown attached to them? Of course this fate might come about through the culmination of certain decisions the player has made throughout the game, but what if those decisions don't really give any indication of your character's ultimate fate? I don't think I would mind that much if the character's fate was well integrated into the overall plot of the story. But I do think I would like the chance to help my character avoid that fate. Instead of a given a cutscene where control over my character is taken away from me, I would like the option to be given direct control over my character at that crucial moment and then be presented with a gameplay sequence that is extremely challenging. There would only be a limited number of times to attempt this sequence before the game moved on. What do you guys think?

Doesn't really bother me much. If it gets more people to try the game out and consequently stimulate the development of more RPGs, I can live with that. I do think the 'This is the new ****' music makes it look like they're trying a little bit too hard though.

Thanks for your comments as well Mr. Sawyer. I guess I'm one of those people that would prefer a short animation of one or two quick movements to knock out the enemy rather than long combos. I already know I'll be playing a sneaky type that will try to get close and incapacitate enemies with CQC. I think as long as I can measureably see that my melee skills increase with skill points invested, I'll be happy. My thinking was as you become better and better at CQC, the actual combos would become more efficient and deadly instead of an overly long combo. You know what, just trash my little complaints and just give us a great story with lots of intrigue. I'll be most happy with that.

I find myself drawn to these open world/sandbox games, but I usually have trouble finishing them. At first, the prospect of exploring an open world sounds really fun, but I find that without a strong narrative to push the game forward, I usually end up doing a bunch of random stuff then getting bored. It was pretty much this way with GTA3, Mercernaries 2 and of course Morrowind and Oblivion, among others. On the other hand the base jumping and parachuting look incredibly fun and I like the over the top action so the demo definitely interests me.

Since I have nothing better to do on a Sat. night, I've been going around watching more AP videos. Poor me. It game does look incredibly fun and I like the timed responses that forces you to think quick. I think the main gripe I have with the CQC is Mike just does the same combo over and over, at least in the videos I've seen until now. It would be cool if as you gain more levels and invest more skill in CQC you are given options on how to dispatch enemies. Like a master in CQC would be able to disarm an enemy, take the enemy's weapon and shoot him all in two quick movements. You could map this move to a specific button other than the basic combo button. Or if Mike is caught between multiple enemies, a master CQC player would have the move where he could take a human shield and dispatch the other enemy and then knock out the shield.

I really enjoyed the CQC from the Bourne game. When you entered CQC with an opponent, the camera would zoom into a side view, at which point you could perform your basic punch-kick combos and block incoming attacks. Pretty basic but each hit felt incredibly painful due to the animations. Bourne would deliver groin kicks, knee kicks and other no nonsense attacks. You also had adrenaline bars that you gained through quick kills and head shots in other parts of the game, which you could use to instantly take down an enemy, or inflict massive damage on bosses when in CQC. When faced with more than one opponent, lets say three, you could use all three bars of adrenaline to instantly take down three opponents, much like he does in the movies. Or if you didn't want to use your adrenaline bars, enemies you weren't facing off directly had the opportunity to hit you from behind. The game gave you some time via a quick button press to avoid and counterattack accordingly. Also there were situational takedowns like smashing someone's head through a glass door, using a pen as a weapon etc. The whole thing felt really brutal and captured the tone of the movie fights well. Of course it felt strange other enemies would stop shooting at you when you entered one of these fights, but I usually in those cases I used a quick takedown to keep the game flowing. You also had the option of taking someone down as you were running towards them, which was useful when in evade and escape sequences.

Yeah, I'll probably just return it. I just wanted to see what the hubbub was about.

Now that I think about it, Snake in MGS4 had a similar looking crouch walk, so I guess I can live with it.

Definitely looking forward to AP, but some of the gameplay elements in the video were quite strange as others have mentioned. The train thing was pretty dumb, unless it was some sort of stealth train. The hand to hand was pretty unimpressive. I hope that it was a PC with low skills in melee. Within a realistic setting, taking shotgun blasts full on and being ok seems out of place. At least in other more sci-fi oriented games you have armor and shields to explain the mitigation of damage. Or you're a vampire or something. Did the crouching walk animation just seem weird to anyone? Thorton looked like a chicken and not a bad ass spy. Who knows, maybe real covert operatives actually move that way? Again, within a realistic setting, the ability to suddenly go invisible seems out of place. I hope they can explain that one with some kind of technology. And as others have mentioned the AI looked pretty bad. I guess if the guys Mike was fighting against were a bunch of untrained thugs (they kinda looked like that) it could explain their general confusion and lack of coordination. Hopefully there will be enemies that that will form up and systematically sweep a room to find the PC and not go wandering off aimlessly at the slightest distraction. Don't get me wrong, I'm really looking forward to the game. Especially the story and character interactions and the choices you'll be faced with. I just hope that actually gameplay will be just as entertaining.

I might get the Director's Cut if the price point is reasonable. I think the Witcher is a great game and CDProjekt did an awesome job. I'll just give my original copy to a friend who might be interested. I'm trying to convert my more casual game playing friends to the RPG genre. So far its not happening. Wish they would give us some info on a possible sequel though.

I recently re-installed Windows and after updating all my drivers and stuff, I was wondering what game to install when Mass Effect caught my eye. I hadn't played it in a while, so I decided to give it another play through. I just used the stock male character model since to me, Shepard's voice is associated with that face. Plus all the models I try to make look incredibly ugly. I'm having a lot of fun with it this time around. I think I bored myself during my first play-through because I went out of my way to do most of the tedious side quests, just to see all that the game had to offer. This time I'm concentrating on the main storyline and just doing any sidequests that might happen to pop up. Combat is pretty fun. I'm playing as a soldier class so eventually I'll be proficient with all the main weapons. The duck and cover, shoot gameplay isn't as smooth as other action titles, but it gets the job done. My main gripe is that the companion AI is absolutely horrible. They will stand in the open and just shoot, not go to the places I tell them to and generally get themselves killed. I usually have them hold position with sniper rifles at the entrance to whatever place I'm attacking to avoid this. I do have a few gameplay gripes, the main one being that there are so many locked containers in the game, but if you're a soldier class its almost imperative to have either Tali or Kaiden in your party. Tali most of the time, if you want to open the tougher containers. I think it would have been better if they just let you use omni gel to open all containers since the electronics and decryption skills have combat uses as well. I would also have liked the ability to change out party members on the fly instead of having to backtrack all the way to the Normandy. Still, having a blast. I like the rpg elements and the choices that are presented to you. I would have liked more NPC characterization such as more intricate side-quests related to them, instead of the current structure of go through the same area as any other side quest except find a unique item at the end. I've been reading up on ME2 news and they seem to address a lot of the complaints of ME1, so I'm really looking forward to it being released. On my PS3 I'm playing Killzone 2 and while its a great fast paced shooter, I doubt I'll finish it. Mainly because I suck at console FPS controls and it seems like I've played the game before already so nothing is really pulling me in. I'm on the second mission, but I'm pretty much bored with it. To the people who may have played it, are there any unique gameplay moments or twists in the story that would make it worthwhile to continue? If not, I'll just send it back in for the next game in my queue.

You want to know why Sith guys are so pissy? Other parts of them have fallen off as well. Edit: Very, very nice video. Will Bounty Hunters actually be able to fly though? Yes, that would certainly cause some discontent among the male sith. What falls off for the women? Wait...forget I asked.

I'm more interested in the individual class story arcs that seem to be a main feature. I think I remember hearing in the story and setting trailer that one of these story arcs will have the content of one single player RPG. This sounds interesting and I'm curious to see how this is pulled off. Obviously they can't make a unique story for every single player so will we have every bounty hunter experience mostly the same thing or will there be heavy randomization of events for each character? How does WoW handle this? I understand that the story is continually being told through the game. As for the trailer it was cool, but I'm kinda tired of seeing the Jedi decimated again. It seems like they're always in the process of being annihilated. It serves as a good backdrop for the game and the inevitable player conflict I guess. Still wish they made a Kotor 3 but if the game is good I will definitely try it for my Star Wars fix.

I should really play this game.